Black Friday Devolves to Its Logical Conclusion
Jim Inglis
Author - Breakthrough Retailing, How a bleeding orange culture can change everything!
Exhibit A: The Black Friday Store Opens in Atlanta - Black Friday is now 52 weeks a year!
Exhibit B: Customers dig through stacks of unsorted products in different states of disarray.
Pricing Policy: All items are priced at 8 dollars on Friday and decreases every day until Wednesday when anything left is sold for fifty cents.
Exhibit C: This photo taken on Monday [$2 dollar day]. The product assortment on Monday has already transitioned from Products > Stuff > Junk > To Crap!
Well, folks – What the heck does Black Friday mean? If it were a brand -- What is the promise? Does it mean a special day with below cost specials like it was originally? Does it mean a month or more of mediocre specials? Is it perhaps a flea market with returned e-commerce products? Is it a special day in April when we have 'Spring Black Friday'? Is it a severe lack of inspiration, innovation and creativity?
The answer is ‘All of the Above’ – You see, Black Friday is so overused in so many contexts that is doesn't really mean anything unique or special.
Black Friday is simply an overused marketing cliche. What is a cliché? The Dictionary definition of cliché fits Black Friday perfectly:
?CLICHE' - “A PHRASE OR OPINION THAT IS OVERUSED AND BETRAYS A LACK OF ORIGINAL THOUGHT”.
With all the high priced Marketing Vice Presidents and Premier Advertising Agencies hired by the many big box retailers ---- You would think they could come up with something more original!
Well there is always next year -- How will your company differentiate its Christmas promotions next year?
Strategist, initiator & doer for sales & retail marketing.
2 个月A good customer relationship is based on trust in good prices and the development of customer-centered and substantial services and assortments. Discounting retailers are ultimately seen by customers not as customer-oriented, but as greedy. The customer loses trust because "retailers who give discounts today were too expensive yesterday ??" The result is distrustful customers and disloyal bargain hunters.
BBA in marketing and finance ll NISM Series-8 Certified || Affiliate marketing ll Equity investor ll Expert in financial analysis and Financial modelling ll Equity research aspirant
3 个月Good insight
Company Director & Retail Advisor
3 个月Jim Your insights are always so spot on. ?? Well done as usual.
Head of Competitor Insights & Global Partnerships at Bunnings
3 个月It draws out some unusual & uninspired activity; we see a significant ‘bring forward’ of promotions & spend from Boxing Day in Australia without a unique or differentiated effort in the product selection or offer. In one case I observed a retailer discounting by 10% the week leading into Black Friday, which was raised to 20% on Black Friday, & then 30% on Cyber Monday… imagine how the customer would feel about the retailer if they bought something last week!
CMO | CCO | General Manager | Leadership | Retail and Marketing Consulting
3 个月Agree Jim Inglis, even in Australia where Black Friday is less mature than US or UK, it already just blends together and then rolls in Cyber Monday and ultimately there is no differentiation. Ultimately it leads to a lack of trust on two fronts. A lack of trust that this is really a true sale and a lack of trust for shopping throughout the year (with the latter being far more dangerous to the brand in the long term...and short term). Build a winning and differentiated offer, be true to what you say you are going to do and deliver great value every day to ever customer.